AMT error

[monas]

Hi guys,

Currently I am having massive dramas with Intel AMT.

Here is the current layout.

Each pc is a dell optiplex 960.
Staticly allocated IP address
Can ping them no probs
AMT running in small business mode


ISSUE:

When the PC's are on for a period of time. I cannot use the amtpower.pl to turn them on (sleep more) or off
When I do a status I get a mixture or 256 errors and when I do a remotecontrol.exe I get a error code of 25

When I do a power cycle and the machines are off. I have to do a status check every 10mins other wise it times out and I cannot turn them on ** IS THIS NORMAL?? **

When the PC's are on all day and I try and turn them off using the amtpower.pl scripts I get an error ** IS THIS NORMAL **. However, if I turn them on from being turned off and do a power status every 10mins, there is no problems.

Also, any issues I have at all I am having to do a physical power cycle to fix.

Any advice at all would be great.

Cheers,

JM

[IDZ_A_Intel]

Hi there!

Could you let us know what version of the firmware that is on your systems? Do you have the latest versions of the AMT Firmware and drivers that are available on the Dell Support site?

It is odd that you have to do a status check every 10 minutes - could you check your power options in your MEBX configuration? Is the ME On in all Sx states? Or is it set to be off when the system is off or is it set for Wake on Lan? Can you ping them when they are off or sleeping?

There is a similar forum post HERE where our developer was also getting the error code of 25. In this case, the systems weren't set to use DHCP in the MEBX so when the system was powered down, the ME no longer had an IP address. You said you are set up with Static IP address so you will need to veryify that your ME is still reachable (via an IP address) when your system is off.Also did you enter the Host Name in the ME config menues?

When your system is off, could you bring up the Web UI and see if it shows a valid IP Address (well, if you can connect at all?)

[monas]

Hi Gael,

I maybe blind but on Dell's website there is no AMT update fireware. I have rang dell about this and they have told me to re-install the Network drivers at the OS level ( I nearly fell off my seat) and update the Bios. The model is dell optiplex 960 and I am using the latest bios "A7".

AMT Engine is ver 5.1.0.0011 MEBX: Is set for On in S0, ME Wake in S3, S4-5. We can ping the machines in all states.

Further to add, When we use the AMTPower.pl the errors we get are. System state S261 orS256 if that makes a difference.

On some machines we can noteven bring up the WebGui ( but always pingthe machine) and some we can ( we do it has the right IP addresss).

As for a hostname, we didnt enter that in, IP was fine. We have entered a hostname in on just 2 machines to see if that makes a difference.

Looking fwd to your responce.

Thanks

Jay

[Andrew_S_Intel2]

Ah,this might be due to the system beingset to ME Wake in S3, S4-S5, occasionally that causes scripting problems because it takes time to wake the ME before it can process messages. On an AMT 5 system, there are two options. The better of the two is to bump the idle timeout up, if your MEBx is the same as mine this is under Intel AMT Configuration -> Idle Timeout (if you set it to the maximum of 65535, the ME will stay on for about 45 days). You could also set the Power Control so that the ME was On in all power states, instead of On in S0, ME Wake in S3, S4-S5, but this power package was removed in AMT 6.

Also,for future reference it looks like the the Dell download page for the Optiplex 960 is here: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz&ServiceTag=&SystemID=PLX_960&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=&impid= (at least currently, it might change over time of course), theAMT OS packages arein the Chipset Section. There's one that says it applies to AMT HECI, and the other that says it applies to SOL/LMS, both together are the OS level AMT packages. Just power control shouldn't need either package, but some of the other features might need these packages to be installed.

[IDZ_A_Intel]

Andy has a point with the waking the ME from sleeping states - it can take some time to do this because when the system gets the first AMT Message, the ME is sleeping and can't process it (and so you also get an error.) Once it wakes up, it can start processing messages.